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Hauliers report increase in the number of stowaways
Page 14
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The RHA warns its members to be careful as more illegal asylum seekers sneak aboard UK-bound truas David Harris reports.
THERE HAS BEEN an increase in the number of illegal asylum seekers secretly boarding UKbound trucks in the past six months, says the Road Haulage Association (RHA).
Peter Cullum, the association's head of international affairs, says the numbers are still low compared to five years ago, but the past few months have seen RHA members reporting a noticeable increase.
"Although numbers are small, it is something we are warning members to be careful about," says Cu the last six months our members have logged five or six cases with us, whereas in the year before that there weren't any."
Cullum adds that the RHA experience probably mirrors the national picture where an annual figure of 12,000 illegals being found on all forms of transport in the early years of the century has dropped to about 1,200. Weather seems to be one factor that affects the number of stowaways, Cullum says. "Bad weather seems to discourage them, so you get fewer when it rains or during a cold winter."
One of the encouraging developments for hauliers whose vehicles are found to have illegals aboard is that customs officials appear to be more willing to drop fines against them. "Of those members that have reported having illegals found, a number have subsequently had proceedings dropped completely," says Cullum.
Hauliers have long argued that even the most diligent measures to keep loads scaled and asylum seekers away can be undermined by determined would-be illegal immigrants -We even had one recent case where an illegal immigrant was found on a vehicle in France, the truck was searched, and then more were found in the same truck on the British side. It can be extremely difficult to stop them."